Supreme Court justices are the closest thing we have to absolute monarchs. They have immense power over our lives, are accountable to no one for their decisions and can stay in office for life.

In return, they must not only act honestly and impartially but should avoid doing anything that even looks dubious. As the court often reminds us, the appearance of justice is as important as justice itself. Judging by recent actions, however, some current justices don’t seem to buy that.

Today, Supreme Court justices are subject to virtually no ethical standards — except those they impose on themselves. That is not good enough.

The official Code of Conduct for United States Judges is not applicable to justices. It should be. Though legally unenforceable, it establishes specific standards of conduct that no justice is likely to ignore as casually as some seem to do now.

The provisions dealing with recusal, or withdrawal from a case, also need to be addressed. For the current system of allowing each justice to decide when to withdraw from a case is inadequate — it is axiomatic that no one should be a judge in his or her own case.

The most recent example of a justice’s political involvement relates to Justice Samuel Alito. At least since 2007, Alito has attended The American Spectator’s annual fundraising dinners. The publisher of this prominent right-wing magazine, Alfred Regnery, is a key figure in the Conservative Action Project, formed to oppose Obama administration policies, and is affiliated with the tea party movement. Its membership includes former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Grover Norquist and other right-wing notables.

The 2010 dinner was a big-ticket event — sponsors contributed up to $25,000 each. Tea party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota was the keynote speaker. The 2009 keynoter was Indiana Rep. Mike Pence of “shut it down” fame. The year before, Alito himself presented the keynote speech.

The 2010 dinner pulled in more than $320,000 from the $1,000-$25,000 sponsors alone.

A reporter at the dinner asked Alito about his participation at these openly partisan evenings. “It’s not important,” Alito replied and walked away.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have also allowed their names and office to be used for fundraising and other partisan activities. Each has attended big strategy and fundraising meetings held semiannually by brothers Charles and David Koch, among the wealthiest and most active of all tea party and right-wing financiers.

These meetings are secret, but their purpose is not. In a confidential letter, inviting some 200 conservative business people and political activists to the January 2011 session in Palm Springs, Calif., Charles, the elder brother, wrote:

“At our most recent meeting in Aspen [in June 2010], our group heard plans to activate citizens against the threat of government overspending and to change the balance of power in Congress this November.”

The Aspen meeting, which included a discussion of the 2012 election, produced at least $25 million in pledges. The Koch brothers reportedly plan to raise $88 million for the 2012 race.

The invitation packet to the 2011 meeting described the “action-oriented program” of these meetings as follows:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and a leading GOP fundraiser, Fred Malek, attended the January 2011 meeting.

We don’t know why Scalia and Thomas were at these partisan meetings and what they did. And there is no established procedure for finding out. Supreme Court justices answer to no one for what they do.

When their conduct is questioned, they respond either in self-righteous indignation (as Scalia has) or charge their questioners with being “bent on undermining the court” (as Thomas has) or just dismiss the matter as “not important” (as Alito did).

There is no justification for such arrogance. The justices are public servants and should be just as responsive to valid questions about the propriety of their conduct as the lowest GS-1.

What seems beyond dispute is that all three justices engaged in conduct inconsistent with the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which requires that a judge “not personally participate in fundraising activities; or use or permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for that purpose, … make speeches for a political organization or attend or purchase a ticket for a dinner or other event sponsored by … an entity whose principal purpose is to advocate for or against political candidates.”

For reasons unknown, however, neither this code nor any other applies to Supreme Court justices. According to court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg, “justices look to the code for guidance.” Some justices apparently don’t look often.

By law, Supreme Court justices do have to “disqualify [themselves] in any proceeding in which [their] impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

This is not relevant to Alito’s attendance at The American Spectator dinners. But it does raise questions about Scalia’s and Thomas’s trips to the Koch meetings, which feature discussions of elections as well as issues such as climate change and campaign finance that often come before the court.

More than 135 law professors — including leading judicial ethics experts — sent a letter about this to Congress. In response, a bill bringing Supreme Court justices under the conduct code has been introduced. The bill also provides that a special panel of judges be established by the Judicial Conference of the United States, to review a judge’s or justice’s refusal to recuse or withdraw from a case when requested.

There is no good reason why the code should not be applicable to Supreme Court justices.

But the provisions dealing with recusal are more problematic. Justices are generally reluctant to withdraw from a case. No one can replace one, the argument goes, so a recusal leaves the court with only eight votes — and the possibility of a tie and no decision.

Though plausible, the likelihood of a tie is, in fact, slim. As of April 21, 2011, out of 19 cases from which Justice Elena Kagan withdrew because of her prior job as solicitor general, only one has resulted in a tie. A study of 6,815 cases — from October 1946 through the summer 2005 — found that in 1,319 cases, equally divided votes were possible, but only 74 resulted in a tie.

The proposed solution in the bill is not, however, really workable. No lower court judge or fellow justice would overturn a justice’s refusal to disqualify himself. That action would cast aspersions on the latter’s judgment that he can decide the case fairly.

A preferable approach could be to establish a special panel of perhaps five Supreme Court justices, chosen randomly by computer and including retired justices whenever possible, to decide recusal requests.

If the decision is that the justice not withdraw, the panel should issue a written opinion, except where there is a compelling reason not to. Of course, if a justice decides to withdraw voluntarily, no further proceedings are necessary. Though he or she should explain why.

Supreme Court justices, like everyone else, spend much of their time with like-minded associates. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with this. Some justices, such as Abe Fortas, have crossed the line and assisted presidents and others on controversial matters. That was wrong. But none, as far as we know, has publicly participated in partisan fundraisers and strategy meetings. That is equally wrong.

No one expects Supreme Court justices to live apart from society. But when they allow themselves to be “featured” at political fundraisers and strategy sessions or don’t withdraw from cases where they seem to have a conflict of interest, they truly “undermine the court.”

Congress should move quickly on this matter — it is time for the justices to live by the same rules as all other federal judges.

Herman Schwartz is a constitutional law professor at the American University Washington College of Law.